The battle of sexes - ingratiation, gender and LMX

Abstract

The hypothesis that subordinate ingratiation and subordinate gender will interact to influence LMX quality, such that ingratiation will have a stronger positive impact on LMX relationships for female subordinates than those for male subordinates was tested with a sample of employees (N=164) working in a large organization in Eastern India. Evidence in support of the hypothesis was found. The implications of this result have been discussed. Leader Member Exchange theory talks about a high degree of mutual influence and obligation between superiors and subordinates, and asserts that such a relationship will result in several important positive outcomes such as lower turnover, higher subordinate performance, citizenship behavior, commitment and satisfaction. The theoretical concept is grounded in the social exchange theory (Sparrowe & Liden, 1997). Leader-member exchange theory suggests that an interpersonal relationship, based on social exchange evolves between supervisors and subordinates against the background of a formal organization wherein "each party must offer something the other party sees as valuable and each party must see the exchange as reasonably equitable or fair" (Graen & Scandura, 1987: 182). The ability to influence subordinates, peers and superiors is a major determinant of managerial effectiveness. The success of an influence attempt by a manager is likely to depend on a number of things, including the influence tactics used by the manager, intrinsic attributes of the request that motivate the target person to comply with it, and manager’s power. Ingratiation is behavior that is intended to make someone feel better about you and more receptive to request. Some of the ingratiation forms that are useful for a proactive influence attempt are – agreeing with the person’s opinions, praising the person on past achievements, emphasizing on the person’s unique qualifications, being sympathetic about the problems caused by your request, being sensitive to person’s moods.